~ Hi there! On HGTV's Hit Reality TV Show DESIGN STAR, I sewed, painted & sawed my way through some pretty tough challenges, but design doesn't have to be hard! I believe in combining simple, timeless design ingredients to create what I call "Design Recipes". I hope you find this to be a truly awesome resource. www.design-recipes.com contains design tips, articles, podcasts, how-to videos and of course design recipes galore! I invented Design Recipes simply because I love sharing my ideas! For years I collected design magazines, tagged and clipped pages with inspirational images & did nothing! That's because I didn't have the resource information so I could purchase the beautiful furniture I was seeing on the pages of the magazines! With Design Recipes, I SHARE how the room was executed, giving you the basic design tools needed for you to recreate the same look on your own and best of all I give you all of the resource information! Enjoy!

Venice, Italy is typically one of those cities on the must do list when traveling to Italy. I stayed here for 3 days, which for many is long enough to walk the lovely canals, take in a museum or two and perhaps shop. For me, Venice is also a city that continues to blend old and new. Today, one visiting Venice can stay at a charming older style inn or opt for pure modern. Further, while glass making in general has evolved around the world, many believe that Venice, specifically the island of Murano, off the coast of Venice is where some of the best glass in the world continues to be made. A visit to the island of Murano, is a day trip, however if you can not make the trip, there is certainly plenty of Murano glass that can be purchased in Venice, just be sure to inquire about authenticity if that is what you are looking for. Beyond a trip to Venice itself, there are also many ways one can bring “a taste of Venice” into one’s decor. From glass chandeliers to perhaps a unique piece of furniture, you can easily integrate Venetian style pieces.

It is also worth noting that The Corning Museum of Glass http://www.cmog.org in Corning, New York is the largest glass making museum in the world. So if a trip to Italy is out of the question, why not head to the Finger Lakes region of New York, and stop by this wonderful museum, don’t forget to visit wineries, as wine making is also what the Finger Lakes is known for.